{"id":475348,"date":"2026-05-30T23:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475348\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T23:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T23:03:15","slug":"rte-star-admits-he-would-like-to-be-paid-more-amid-fresh-payments-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475348\/","title":{"rendered":"RTE star admits he would ‘like to be paid more’ amid fresh payments scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A beloved RT\u00c9 star admitted he would like to be paid a little more amid the national broadcaster\u2019s latest payment scandal.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 found itself in a new payment scandal<\/a> earlier this month, after it had to update its highest-paid presenters list to include Derek Mooney, who was initially included as a producer \u2014 meaning he wouldn\u2019t be included in the list.<\/p>\n

The updated list now has Derek as the seventh highest paid presenter in the organisation last year, and the eighth in 2024, in a deal that Director General Kevin Bakhurst insisted \u2018wasn\u2019t a side deal.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"14\/11\/2023A beloved RT\u00c9 star admitted he would like to be paid a little more amid the national broadcaster\u2019s latest payment scandal. Pic: Leah Farrell\/\u00a9 RollingNews.ie<\/p>\n

In a new interview, Marty Whelan<\/a> has since opened up on the matter \u2014 and admitted that he wouldn\u2019t mind being paid more.<\/p>\n

\u2018The easy answer [to the scandal] is there\u2019s nothing you can do about it,\u2019 Marty told the Irish Times<\/a>. \u2018The second answer is all these things are as much of a shock to me as they are to anybody else.<\/p>\n

\u2018Of course I\u2019d like to be paid more, particularly when I see what other people are on. In my case, when Winning Streak stopped because of COVID, clearly I didn\u2019t get another contract for it,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n

\"MartyMarty Whelan admitted that he would like to be paid more at RT\u00c9, but added that, of course, if he had more jobs there, he would be paid more. Pic: X\/ Marty Whelan<\/p>\n

Marty co-presented Winning Streak alongside Sin\u00e9ad Kennedy, before the show aired its last episode in 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Marty is still on the airwaves as a presenter on Lyric FM, and commentated for RT\u00c9 during the Eurovision.<\/p>\n

\u2018If you\u2019re supposed to be at Eurovision, and we don\u2019t go, you\u2019re not going to get a contract,\u2019 he continued. \u2018These are my understandings of how this business works. I would like to think that it works like that for everybody.\u2019<\/p>\n

As well as the correction that Derek Mooney<\/a> was, in fact, one of the highest-paid presenters in RT\u00c9, the partner of the late Sean Rocks, who presented ARENA on RT\u00c9 Radio 1, said that he (Se\u00e1n) was also classified only as a producer in his separate contracts with RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n

\"\"RT\u00c9 found itself in a new payment scandal after Derek Mooney (pictured) was put on the highest-earning presenters list, after he wasn\u2019t initially placed on the list. Pic: RT\u00c9<\/p>\n

Se\u00e1n Rocks\u2019 widow, Catherine Bailey, met with the Minister for Communications, Patrick O\u2019Donovan, last week to raise her concerns, as the misclassification of Se\u00e1n\u2019s employment with RT\u00c9 had significant financial implications<\/a> for his family.<\/p>\n

Minister O\u2019Donovan, who asked RT\u00c9 on his way out of the meeting whether there were \u2018any more landmines,\u2019 said he is pressing ahead with plans to place RT\u00c9 under the oversight of the Comptroller and Auditor General.<\/p>\n

Legislation, he said, will go before the D\u00e1il in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beloved RT\u00c9 star admitted he would like to be paid a little more amid the national broadcaster\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-475348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}